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		<header>
			<h1>The creepy pedometer has been lost.</h1>
			<p>Day 00571: Wednesday, 2016 September 28</p>
		</header>
<p>
	Current countdowns:
</p>
<ul>
	<li>20 unfinished weblog entries in <a href="/en/weblog/2016/07-July/">July</a></li>
	<li>19 days until my old domain registrar can no longer counter my charge dispute</li>
</ul>
<p>
	Over the past few days, I&apos;ve learned a bit about how <abbr title="Global System for Mobile Communications">GSM</abbr> devices are identified by the towers that they connect to.
	In theory, swapping an active <abbr title="subscriber identity module">SIM</abbr> card to another device should transfer the account to the new device, but in some cases, such as is the case with MetroPCS&apos;s plans, the <abbr title="subscriber identity module">SIM</abbr> cards are somehow locked to a specific device or a specific class of devices, as I found out back in <a href="/en/weblog/2015/05-May/13.xhtml">May</a>.
	But how does the <abbr title="subscriber identity module">SIM</abbr> card locked to a specific device? Well, it might not be the <abbr title="subscriber identity module">SIM</abbr> card itself, but the network.
	The network is able to identify the device via two numbers, a number in the <abbr title="subscriber identity module">SIM</abbr> card and the <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr> of the device itself.
	Only the <abbr title="subscriber identity module">SIM</abbr> card number is supposed to be used for account identification, but on some networks, the <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr> is used as well.
	What would happen if I spoofed my <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr>? Would that allow me to transfer the account to my Replicant device? The only way to be sure is to try.
</p>
<p>
	Next was the question of legality.
	If I own both devices, is it legal use the <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr> of one device on the other? Sources indicate that <a href="https://www.reference.com./government-politics/legal-change-imei-numbers-e17abf9ad2b8271a">changing the <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr> of a device was almost made illegal in the United States (where I live), but that that law never actually passed</a>.
	While I was trying to verify my understanding of <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr>s as the only information that a device transmits to the carrier about its own hardware (the first eight digits of the <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr> communicate the device model, which the carrier can use to look up exactly what the hardware specifications are), someone helped me find some more official information on the legality of <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr>-changing.
	One <a href="https://congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/1949/text">bill on the matter</a> is labeled as having become law, but it still might be legal for me to change the <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr>.
	The bill text makes an exception if the changing of the <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr> is for privacy purposes.
	Does what I&apos;m doing qualify? Basically, I&apos;m trying to keep it private from my carrier that I&apos;ve switched the <abbr title="subscriber identity module">SIM</abbr> card to my preferred device and am not using the device that I purchased from them.
	It&apos;s not really any of their business which device that I use.
	That said though, it might not matter if my use qualifies or not.
	While the bill is labeled as having become law, another page indicated that the bill was <a href="https://congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-bill/1949/all-actions">read twice and referred to a committee</a>, but there&apos;s no indication that it actually did pass and become law.
</p>
<p>
	With the legality out of the way, I might be able to get the <a href="https://www.metropcs.com/tablets/details/alcatel-onetouch-pop-7/610214637741.html">MetroPCS tablet</a> that has the great tablet plan, then switch the plan into my Replicant.
	I would save money every month and have an untrusted tablet that I could use for reading on the go, though I couldn&apos;t use it for anything that required any level of trust or security.
	I&apos;d have it in airplane mode at all times for safety and transfer my school reading assignments to it over <abbr title="Universal Serial Bus">USB</abbr>.
	The tablet&apos;s price has gone up quite a bit from when I first tried to buy one, but at the time, I didn&apos;t have enough knowledge to get the plan switched over to my Replicant device, and in fact, I can&apos;t be sure that I actually do have the right knowledge now.
	At the current price, the tablet would take two and a half years to pay for itself out of my monthly bill savings.
	Two and a half years is a long commitment, considering the fact that I now seem to move every school year and might not be in a T-Mobile coverage zone in any given year.
	After all, during this past year, I lived in Coos Bay, which was outside of T-Mobile&apos;s reach.
	Likewise, better plans might be available before the two and a half years are up, so the tablet might end up costing me more than it saves.
	The next issue is that I&apos;ll need to get ahold of a free <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr> changer.
	The instructions that I find for changing the <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr> from the system menus don&apos;t seem to work.
	It might be a feature not present in Replicant.
	The <abbr title="International Mobile Station Equipment Identity">IMEI</abbr> changers that I&apos;ve seen fall into one of two categories: they either have source code but lack a license, making them default to being nonfree due to copyright law, or they completely lack source code, making them intentionally nonfree.
	I&apos;m hoping that I can convince the developers of at least one of the ones that has source code to add a free license to their work.
</p>
<p>
	I planned to finish my weekly discussion forum postings yesterday, but got a bit distracted dealing with T-Mobile support representative about the tablet-activation issues.
	Instead, I finished my postings today:
</p>
<blockquote>
<p>
	Good riddance to card catalogs.
	They do have the advantage of privacy, unlike the most popular search engines these days, but using a search engine with better practices and/or a proxy and decent Web browser settings eliminates that advantage.
	Search engines are so much faster at finding good results with less effort and they can be used without walking down to the library!
</p>
<p>
	I hadn&apos;t thought about how in the past, teachers were the only place that students found knowledge.
	It&apos;s an interesting perspective, and not one that I&apos;ve thought about in years.
	With the sum of most public human knowledge being at out fingertips whenever we ask for it, individual people such as teachers are no longer the gatekeepers to knowledge that they once were.
</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>
	That makes sense.
	So where teachers once were the fountains of knowledge themselves, they are now guides leading us to where we can acquire knowledge ourselves.
	It seems like the role of teachers has shifted to one that better empowers students.
	Instead of giving students specific knowledge that the teacher (and the school board) feel is important, the student is taught to learn it from elsewhere.
	In that way, the student learns how to acquire knowledge, and they can apply that to whatever knowledge that they seek; the student can choose to learn about other topics, ones that the teachers (and school board) never thought to teach.
</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>
	It seems like I&apos;m the only person that didn&apos;t understand that while the statement certainly isn&apos;t true these days, it actually used to be very true, in a way.
	Information technology changed all that and I seem to have forgotten the past.
	Education has been made so much more accessible to the masses than it once was.
	I agree that teachers are still role models though, helping young people develop into their future selves.
</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>
	I agree that taking ownership of your own learning is like drinking from the fountain of knowledge yourself, but it&apos;s also a little bit more.
	It&apos;s taking responsibility.
	It&apos;s doing your best to succeed, but also, not blaming anyone else if and when you fail.
	You, as the drinker, are the sole person to blame if you slack off or fail to find the resources that you need in order to be successful in your learning.
</p>
<p>
	Teachers do help transport you to that fountain if you ask for their help.
	In this case, asking for their help could mean literally going to the teacher and asking for extra instruction in order to grasp the concept at hand, but it could also be more trivial.
	It could simply mean registering for a particular course at a university, then following the recommended instructions that they give to the entire class.
	As you suggest though, there are alternate methods of transportation, should you choose to employ those instead or in addition.
</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>
	I know what you mean about teachers having to deal with the different paces of their many students.
	One of my parents is an elementary school teacher, and they constantly have to deal with the fact that some students can&apos;t even grasp simple concepts.
	To keep everyone on the same page, lessons need to be slowed down so all of the students can keep up, but that results in wasted time on the parts of the more mentally capable students.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
	After that, I finished my <a href="/en/coursework/UNIV1001/Student_Success.xhtml">essay for the week</a>.
	I should have continued with my learning journal assignments, but I was a bit burned out by then, so I&apos;m putting them off until tomorrow, as that&apos;s when they&apos;re technically due.
	This is the second week that I&apos;ve done this, and it&apos;s really unacceptable.
	I really owe it to myself to do better.
</p>
<p>
	Vanessa lost their proprietary pedometer that our mother gave them.
	Our mother is blaming the fact that Vanessa takes the thing off every night, both to charge it and to keep the creepy thing from tracking their sleeping patterns.
	Personally, I find the thing creepy at all times of day, not just while sleeping, as it records information such as heart rate then uploads it to a remote server controlled by the company.
	However, Vanessa&apos;s more than willing to were it as long as they&apos;re awake while doing so.
	Our mother has a complete disregard for privacy though, often taking desires for privacy as personal attacks.
	I really think that the best option here, aside from not accepting such a creepy gift, would have been for Vanessa not to confide in our mother.
	Vanessa could have just not mentioned that they take the thing off at night, or if they did mention it, they could claim that the device was too uncomfortable to were while sleeping.
</p>
<p>
	Speaking of noxious technology, it seems that there&apos;s another issue with my mother&apos;s infernal iPhone.
	I deleted all of the out-of-date versions of my contact information from the thing so that my mother would have an easier time reaching me.
	However, in some searches, my inaccurate contact information comes up anyway, meaning that it&apos;s not completely gone.
	My mother actually blamed me at first, claiming that I hadn&apos;t deleted my old contact information.
	That&apos;s rich! Whenever my mother adds new contact information for me themself, they <strong>*never*</strong> delete the old information, which lead to their initial complaints about my fluid telephone number.
	(If they would just use <strong>*email*</strong>, they wouldn&apos;t have that issue.
	My email address is stable.) However, as I showed them on their device, I had removed the old contact information from their address book, which was all that I could do.
	That blasted iPhone is just a moron.
</p>
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